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The Pirate Bay has launched it's own Firefox based browser designed to get around the recent BS blocks from governments including piracy and porn. What's more, it is said to contain "No bundled ad-ware, toolbars or other crap". Brilliant.

I'm not sure if the browser not being anonymous (something it never claimed to be) counts as a screwup when that was not their goal, but whatever. It seems to me that you might as well use the Tor bundle.

Freedom Hosting, a single Tor host was shut down. The way it's setup "Tor" can't be "compromised".

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The thing is, there are ways to rig up Tor websites (.onion) in order to get people caught and things shut down. It isn't the foolproof privacy solution, as much as people would like to think it is. It does provide decent services at least, and it isn't as if you'll potentially be tracked unless you wander into the wrong places and try to contact the wrong people, but nobody should be thinking that the government can't weasel their way into just about any privacy solution you can dream up.

Of course, also to consider, especially for users of this site who commonly dabble in downloading in some way, shape, or form: Tor is going to give you awful, awful speeds compared to what you may be used to. As a regular internet user who commonly watches Netflix, uses Youtube, and bounces between multiple tabs all of the time, Tor is not even close to an option unless I want to make some big compromises to put some paranoia at ease. Of course, the speed limits do have a reasonable explanation, but that doesn't make them suddenly a non-issue for many.

Now, if you're somewhere where porn was blocked and you just gotta fap, sure, go Tor. If you're somewhere with a strong government firewall, well, odds are, you won't be able to get your hands on Tor anyways, so it's pretty irrelevant.

On a positive note, Tor was great when I was in high school and wanted to bypass the school filters. Astoundingly slow when combined with the exceptionally slow computers, but fast enough to be worthwhile when I had nothing better to do (which was often in my last year).

The thing is, there are ways to rig up Tor websites (.onion) in order to get people caught and things shut down. It isn't the foolproof privacy solution, as much as people would like to think it is. It does provide decent services at least, and it isn't as if you'll potentially be tracked unless you wander into the wrong places and try to contact the wrong people, but nobody should be thinking that the government can't weasel their way into just about any privacy solution you can dream up.

Of course, also to consider, especially for users of this site who commonly dabble in downloading in some way, shape, or form: Tor is going to give you awful, awful speeds compared to what you may be used to. As a regular internet user who commonly watches Netflix, uses Youtube, and bounces between multiple tabs all of the time, Tor is not even close to an option unless I want to make some big compromises to put some paranoia at ease. Of course, the speed limits do have a reasonable explanation, but that doesn't make them suddenly a non-issue for many.

Now, if you're somewhere where porn was blocked and you just gotta fap, sure, go Tor. If you're somewhere with a strong government firewall, well, odds are, you won't be able to get your hands on Tor anyways, so it's pretty irrelevant.

On a positive note, Tor was great when I was in high school and wanted to bypass the school filters. Astoundingly slow when combined with the exceptionally slow computers, but fast enough to be worthwhile when I had nothing better to do (which was often in my last year).